LONGMONT -- In an unexpected rematch, former mayor Bryan Baum filed Monday to run for his former office against incumbent Dennis Coombs.

"I don't think any seat should go unopposed," Baum said. "That's the way our system works best, with competition. It brings the best out in everyone."

The filing came just a couple of hours before Monday's 5 p.m. deadline.

The move surprised many, not least because Baum learned on July 3 that his kidney cancer, which was originally diagnosed in 2010, has returned and spread to his lymph nodes. He has been undergoing treatment at the Anschutz Medical Campus of the University of Colorado at Denver.

Bryan Baum

Baum said he was responding well to treatments, an immunotherapy that uses infusions of interleukin-2. He returned home from his most recent five-day round of treatment on Friday, the same day he decided to run again.

"I think I could bring some really good leadership in a time we need it," Baum said. "I feel like I did that before and I'm determined to do it again."

He is a senior wealth manager for Baum & Blockhus Wealth Management Services, a firm he owns. He and his wife, Stephanie, have two children, Chase and Brooklynn.

Baum first won election in 2009, defeating single-term mayor Roger Lange. During his two years, the City Council settled several open lawsuits -- including a "border war" with the neighboring town of Firestone -- and waded into a number of high-profile issues, including the banning of medical marijuana dispensaries and the elimination of an affordable housing requirement for residential developments.

The two years also continued a trend of periodic clashes between council factions, including a number between Baum and then-Councilman Sean McCoy. Both were defeated when they sought re-election in 2011, with the mayoral race lingering for three days before Coombs was declared the winner.

Baum said that once again, the city has several lawsuits that need settling, including one by the state over Longmont's oil and gas regulations.

"I don't know why we're still fighting that (regulations) lawsuit when we just voted fracking out of our city," said Baum, one of seven former mayors who opposed the city's ban of hydraulic fracturing.

Now that the ban is in the charter, he said, supporting it needs to be the council's priority.

"The citizens told us, and that's where our attention needs to be," he said.

He also said he was concerned about the use of tax-increment financing, rather than municipal bonds, to support the redevelopment of the Twin Peaks Mall and that other methods might have given the mall "more of an onus to perform." At the same time, Baum said, the city had to be careful not to stretch its bond capacity too far -- though a bond issue to support the rollout of a citywide fiber-optic network would be justified.

"Something like that, which will make us money, is something we need to have," he said. "But some of these other things are hit-and-miss. We need to look at how we're leveraging our future"

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